System and method for airline purchasing program management

Abstract

A method and system for air carrier contract management and optimization is disclosed. In particular, a system is described that facilitates travel contract optimization by generating contract terms and conditions desirable for optimizing client expenditure. Once the contract terms and conditions are determined, a yield management system facilitates compliance with contract terms and conditions by generating and providing selling instructions to booking systems to facilitate compliance with contract terms by travelers. Booking activity is provided back to yield management system to update contract compliance system and to revise selling instructions accordingly.

1 . A contract optimization method comprising the steps of: 
 accepting client historical data;    receiving airline data from a travel information provider;    performing a capacity analysis to determine historical expenditures of a corporation by airline compared with revenue potential for each airline;    calculating an amount of expenditures that can be covered by different airline combinations;    receiving a choice of a particular city pair from a client;    analyzing a price per segment paid for said city pair;    identifying an amount of expenditure flown on other airlines in said city pair;    performing a shift analysis to determine a maximum amount of revenue that can be shifted to an airline; and    deriving contract terms and conditions to optimize expenditure.    
     
     
         2 . A contract optimization system comprising: 
 a computer server and database system further comprising:    a first module configured to facilitate a capacity analysis, wherein said capacity analysis is configured to provide historical expenditures of a corporation by airline compared with each revenue potential for each airline;    a second module configured to facilitate a shift analysis, wherein said shift analysis determines a maximum amount of revenue that is capable of being shifted to an airline; and    a third module configured to facilitate a savings analysis which estimates a level of savings and overall effective discount of each supplier contract.    
     
     
         3 . An airline contract management system comprising the steps of; 
 receiving historical travel data related to a corporation;    receiving airline data from a travel information provider;    performing a capacity analysis to determine historical expenditures by airline compared with revenue potential for each airline;    analyzing an amount of expenditures that can be covered by different airline combinations;    receiving a choice of a particular city pair by user;    analyzing a price per segment paid for said city pair;    identifying an amount of expenditure flown on other airlines in said city pair;    performing a shift analysis to determine a maximum amount of revenue that can be shifted between airlines;    evaluating contract terms and conditions to optimize expenditure;    assimilate said terms and conditions into a yield management system which generates selling instructions;    communicating said selling instructions to a booking system to facilitate contract compliance;    receiving booking activity information from said booking system; and    revising selling instructions according to said booking activity.    
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein said reservations are airline travel reservations.  
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising the step of determining contract data to be used in said acquiring step.  
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein said contract data are derived from terms and conditions of contracts between corporations and airlines and include the name of airline, target percentage, destination city and origination city.  
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising the step of integrating said yield management system into a GDS system.  
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7 , further comprising the step of presenting selling instructions from the said yield management system in concurrence with the flight information obtained from the GDS system.  
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , further comprising the step of using filtering information from said yield management system to filter information received from the GDS system, wherein said filtered information presented on the booking system provides the preferred or mandated selection for a specified city pair.  
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein said communicating step occurs over a wide area network.  
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein said booking activity comprises the number of seats reserved on a particular airline between a particular city pair.  
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising the step of receiving airline information from a travel information provider.  
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the booking system facilitates online reservations.  
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the booking system facilitates automated telephone reservation.  
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the booking system facilitates in-person airline reservations.